Many computer systems, whether operated as stand-alone personal computers or as a server in an array of servers, may have some form of data storage devices for storing data long-term. In situations where data is stored and accessed on a regular basis, but where the reliability required of the data is relatively low, the data may be stored only on a single hard drive within the computer system. As the reliability required for the data increases, other storage mechanisms and hardware may be utilized to protect against data loss. One such mechanism may be storing the data on a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) system. If desired reliability of the data so warrants, a computer system user may also make backup copies of the data, possibly to magnetic tape based storage devices or to optically based storage devices.
There may also come a time in the life of data that, while it is still needed, access to the data may be relatively infrequent. In situations such as this, a user may be willing to sacrifice access speed for the older data in order to ensure that data more frequently used may be stored on higher bandwidth devices. In such situations, the older data may be stored to magnetic tape devices or optically based devices.
Managing data over its life cycle may be a labor-intensive task. While hard drives, hard drive systems, magnetic tape backup systems, and optically based systems may be available, each of these broad categories of devices may be islands of technology that may not communicate well with each other. In order to transition data from relatively short-term storage such as a hard drive to relatively long-term storage such as a magnetic tape or optically based system, an information technology specialist may be needed. This, and possibly other, factors may increase the cost of ownership of large computing resources to be four to eight times higher than the original cost of purchase of the hardware. Further, storage solutions may only operate on a large scale basis, e.g., on an entire hard drive or on an entire partition of a hard drive, rather than on a file-by-file basis.